There are many reasons to go vegetarian. Here are some effects of meat production and livestock agriculture on the environment- reasons why you should cut meat out of your diet for a greener Earth.
- It uses over 80% of the agricultural land area in the US- over half of the total land area of the country
- It uses hundreds of billions of gallons of water every day for crop irrigation
- It uses more energy than the less developed countries uses for all purposes
- Contributes to deforestation in the US and in the tropical forests of Central and South America, where forests are being cleared at the rate of 25-100 acres a minute
- Produces soil erosion amounting to several billion tons of soil lost every year
- Produces large amounts of CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide, trapping heat in the atmosphere
- Leads to desertification that renders once-fertile land barren
- Causes extinction of indigenous plant and animal species
- Commercial fishing industry has pushed entire oceanic ecosystems to the brink of collapse
- More than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the US goes to raising animals for food
- Run-off from factory farms pollutes waterways more than all other industrial sources combined
- Massive amounts of excrement emits toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia into the air
- Produces more greenhouse gases than all SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in world combined
